Thirty-nine lashes scourge my soul.

Preface.

October 7 is a horror and a grave stain on the Palestinian struggle for freedom and I mourn the victims, the dead, the kidnapped, their families and friends have my sympathy.    

And yet, there's no justification whatsoever for what Israel has done before and since to the Palestinian people. As there can never be a legitimisation of theft of land, of life, of oppression and torture and of such contempt of the other that a people, a nation, now commits genocide. In all that my sympathy, my heart, is with the Palestinian people, all of them, completely.   

However, please do not ever make the mistake of thinking that this Israel equals all Jewish people. Without a doubt there are in (be they few) and outside (just a little more) this state of Israel those that still deserve the title Mensch. 

They flee involuntarily 

from Canaan to Egypt

twenty-eight incubators

yet three remain still

as do eight in Memoriam.

Thirty-one little Amaleks 

fighting for life to-be

and eight infants covered 

with soil and debris

their mother's heart torn.

Pharoa's carriages bear

this flight of innocence 

not from God's plague

but of a nation's wrath 

men, no longer mensch.

© 2023-11-20

Note.

The Yiddish definition of Mensh: A mensch is a person of integrity, morality, dignity, with a sense of what is right and responsible. Moreover, someone caring, kind and considerate.